Everyday English

1889, named for Tuxedo Park, N.Y.,
site of a country club where it first
was worn in 1886. The name is an
attractive subject for elaborate
speculation, e.g.:

The Wolf tribe in New York was called in scorn by other Algonquians
from tuksit: round foot, implying that they
easily fell down in surrender. In
their region thus came the names
Tuxedo and Tuxedo Lake, which were
acquired by the Griswold family in
payment of a debt. There the family
established the exclusive Tuxedo Club,
and there in the late 1880s Griswold
Lorillard first appeared in a dinner
jacket without tails, a tuxedo. By a
twist of slang, one may now refer to a
man in a tuxedo as a 'wolf. [Shipley]

But in another version of the story,
p'tuksit was the Algonquian word for
"wolf," the animal, perhaps from the
shape of its paws. The authoritative
Bright, however, says the tribe's name
probably is originally a place name,
perhaps Munsee Delaware (Algonquian)
p'tuck-sepo "crooked river." Short
form tux is attested from 1922.